Dangerous Lady

by Martina Cole

  ‘How about we give him a free night here, before you see him? Let him have his leg over with one of the girls for nix. That should soften him up before you give him the bad news.’

  ‘Yeah, I think that’s what we’ll do, Roy. Bent filth are ten a penny these days. What we want are the ones who can do us the most good. Hanley’s at Vine Street, from what I understand. He’s the one who liaises with all the other nicks. We’ll cultivate him, I think.’

  Geoffrey and Roy nodded in agreement.

  ‘Now about the loan sharking. I had a visitor today . . . do you remember old Moses Mabele?’

  Roy nodded. ‘The old West Indian bloke who lived in our street?’

  ‘That’s him. His wife Verbeena was mates with Muvver. Used to help her out now and again with money. Old Moses used to work in the Docks.’

  ‘Yeah. What about them?’ Geoffrey’s voice was puzzled.

  ‘Well, they moved Plaistow way. They got one of the old Dockers’ Mansions - he was working in the East India Docks. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Moses popped off a bit sudden like . . .’

  ‘What’s this got to do with us?’

  ‘Well, if you’d listen, you might learn something, Roy. Now where was I?’

  ‘Moses had popped off.’

  ‘Thanks, Geoffrey. Moses popped off a bit sharpish and Verbeena couldn’t afford to bury him like. So she went to one of our “borrowers” - no prizes for guessing who that was.’

  Geoffrey groaned. ‘Not George Denellan!’

  Mickey smirked. ‘The one and only. Anyway, the rub is she couldn’t pay it back quick enough and Georgie boy sent round some heavies . . .’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘I wish I was, Roy. I bunged her a couple of ton for her trouble and told her the debt was scrubbed. What I want you two to do is go and see Denellan. Put him straight about a few things. She’s an old lady, for Christ’s sake. I want at least an arm broken. He’s got to learn that he works for me, not the government. You don’t belt old dears. In fact, you don’t lend money to old dears, period, not without querying it with one of us first. He takes too much on himself and he’s beginning to aggravate me.’

  ‘I’ll go, Mickey. I don’t like Denellan anyway, he’s a ponce.’

  ‘All right then, Roy, you can sort him out. What an advert for us, eh? Beating up old ladies!’

  They all laughed.

  Geoffrey got up and poured them all a drink. ‘What’s happening with that Smithson, Mickey?’

  Michael took the glass off him and sipped the brandy. ‘Our Garry’s made him a little surprise present. He should be getting it some time over the weekend.’

  ‘You’re definitely trouncing him them?’

  ‘Yep. I don’t like doing it, Geoff, but that saucy bugger’s asked for it.’ He poked his finger in the air. ‘Nobody tucks me up and gets away with it. It’ll be a lesson to all the blokes who work for us.’

  ‘How much exactly did he poach?’

  ‘Nigh on two grand.’

  Roy whistled softly. ‘That much?’

  ‘It’s not so much the money as the principle of the thing. One bloke owed us a monkey. He paid three oners over, and then the last two hundred plus the fifty quid interest. Next thing he knows he’s got three blokes waiting for him as he leaves for work. They’d trashed his motor.’ Mickey laughed softly. ‘The poor bastard is informed that he still owes three hundred smackers. Anyway, he paid it . . . but he came to see our Lee and he told me about it and that’s how we uncovered the little bastard’s game. Fuck me! It ain’t as if we don’t pay him enough. For a bloke who came out of the South London slums he’s done bloody well. Do you know, his kids go to private school? Straight up.’

  ‘That don’t surprise me, Mickey, he always fancied himself. He still brags in pubs about how he worked for the Richardsons.’

  Michael snorted. ‘Don’t talk to me about him. He’s history now.’

  The three men were quiet for a few moments. Geoffrey got up from his chair. ‘Shall I bring the other lot up then? See what’s happening with their teams?’

  ‘Yeah. Hang on, what’s the time?’

  ‘Eleven-thirty-five.’

  ‘I bet you a tenner Benny’s sitting in the club watching the stripper. She comes on at half-past.’

  They all laughed.

  ‘He’s sex mad. Most of the girls don’t have to “go case” with the punters, they can go home with Benny!’

  Still laughing, Geoffrey made his way down the stairs to the club’s foyer.

  Gerry Jackson, the doorman, nodded at him. ‘We’re pretty full tonight, mostly Americans. Must be a convention on somewhere.’

  ‘Plenty of money then?’

  Gerry nodded. ‘The touts reckon that the streets are full of them. I bet a few get rolled, don’t you?’

  ‘Bound to, ain’t they? Stupid bastards. They flash their money about like it’s going out of fashion. Someone’s got to stomp them, it stands to reason.’

  Geoffrey walked into the club itself. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and cheap perfume. At the bar area seats lined each wall to either side. They were plush red velvet, were upholstered and fixed to the wall. On them sprawled women and girls of every shape and colour. On entering the club, punters were able to see the merchandise and if a particular girl took their fancy, she accompanied them to their table. The hostesses were only allowed to drink champagne - which they tipped on to the carpet when the punter wasn’t looking. With a different stripper on every twenty minutes this was not difficult. At the moment a tall blonde of about thirty was dancing semi-naked to ‘Pretty Flamingo’. She bent over almost double and her long bleached blonde hair touched the floor. She swayed her buttocks suggestively before hooking her fingers into her sequinned panties and slowly pulling them down her legs.

  Geoffrey smiled. Sure enough there was Benny, sitting on the edge of his seat, his tongue poking out of his mouth as he watched the girl in a state of hypnotic fascination. Stepping out of her panties, the stripper stood up and turned to face the audience. Her pubic hair was black, in stark contrast to the whiteness of her hair. She raised her arms above her head and once more set the tassels on her small breasts spinning.

  The music ended and she nonchalantly picked up her discarded clothes and walked from the stage. She would strip in six or seven different clubs during the course of the evening. She passed by Benny and Geoffrey saw him squeeze her buttocks. The girl smacked his hand away and glared at him, shouting at the top of her voice, ‘When you’re old enough, Little Boy!’

  Benny laughed good-naturedly. Geoffrey called him and he walked over, his moon face wreathed in smiles.

  ‘You never give up, Ben, do you?’

  Benny grinned. ‘Old slag! She’s got a face like a carpenter’s nailbag. Let’s face it, I don’t want to marry her, just fuck her.’

  ‘Well, she obviously don’t want to fuck you.’

  Benny tapped his nose with his finger and winked lewdly. ‘She will. It’s just a matter of wearing her down! She’ll come round in the end.’

  Geoffrey laughed. ‘You’ll wear your dick out if you’re not careful. Where’s the others?’

  ‘In the back bar as usual. You know they don’t like sitting with the peasants!’

  ‘Get upstairs, you ponce. Mickey’s waiting for you. I’ll go and get the others.’

  He walked across the dance floor. All round the walls were large photographs of women in various stages of undress. Geoffrey stopped at a table where a small bald-headed man was sitting with two girls. He smiled at the girls warmly and shook the man’s hand.

  ‘How is everything, sir?’ His voice was solicitous.

  The small man grinned, showing expensive-looking teeth. ‘Just fine, son. These here two ladies is just about as fine as you could get.’ His voice had a southern drawl. The two girls giggled. Geoffrey noticed that one of them was high.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, sir. We like all our guests to enjoy themselves.’ H
e nodded at the man and moved away from the table, his eyes taking in everything that was going on around him. One of the hostesses, a young lady who called herself Shirelle, had her head buried in a man’s lap. Geoffrey sighed with annoyance and, pulling back a curtain at the end of the dance floor, walked into the back bar.

  ‘What on earth’s going on here?’ His voice was loud. Two hostesses were sitting at a table. Geoffrey recognised them as Liverpool twins who Denise, the head girl, had taken on a few days previously. They were tiny little things with wide brown eyes and mousy blonde hair. They were not particularly pretty but their attraction was that they only worked together. They had little half-formed breasts and were no more than fifteen. From what he had gleaned they had been toms for quite a while. Looking at them, it was obvious they had been roughed up.

  Garry spoke. ‘We caught these two “doing a dolly”.’

  Geoffrey was stunned. ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘Oh no I ain’t! Me and Lee were walking across the dance floor to come in here and I saw them, as plain as day. One of them slipped her arms around the bloke and kissed him on the mouth. While she was doing it she lifted his wallet and passed it to the other one. They’ve obviously done it before because it was all over in a split second. In fact, if I’d have blinked I’d have missed it. The slags!’

  Both girls looked at Geoffrey with frightened eyes. In Soho you could be striped up for less. No clubs liked their punters rolled. It brought them to the attention of the police - the last thing a hostess club needed.

  ‘Where’s the wallet now?’

  ‘I’ve got it, Geoff. It’s got over three hundred quid in it.’

  He gave a low whistle.

  ‘Look, Lee, go back in there and tell the punter that the girls had to go somewhere. I noticed as I passed through that Monique and Cynthia are still up in the meat seats. Bring them to him. They’re good girls. Pretend to find the wallet under the table. Make a big thing out of it. Oh, you know what to do.’

  ‘What about these two?’ Garry nodded at the girls.

  ‘Sling them out. Give them a slap, Garry, but don’t go too far. All right.’

  Garry nodded at him.

  ‘When you’ve finished, get your arses upstairs. Mickey’s waiting for you.’

  He stormed out of the back bar and went to where Denise was standing. She was nearly fifty years old and weighed in at seventeen stone. Her face was heavily made up and she wore too much rhinestone jewellery. She had been a prostitute for over thirty years. Her bright orange hair was piled up high on her head, and somehow she had squeezed her enormous bulk into a lurex two-piece. Her huge pendulous breasts spilled over the top. She smelt of gin and Parma violets.

  ‘I want a word with you, Denise. Garry and Lee just caught those scouse birds “doing a dolly”.’

  ‘Look, sonny, I ain’t got eyes up me arse, you know. There’s over thirty brasses in here. I can’t watch them all.’

  ‘Well, my advice to you, Denise, is to get some eyes put up there then! And in the back of your head. That slag Shirelle was giving a punter a blow job earlier. Now either get your act together or you get another job! This is my last warning.’

  He stormed off before she could answer him. Shrugging her ample shoulders, she cursed him in her head.

  One of the girls on the meat seats had heard the exchange. She shouted to Denise: ‘What’s the matter then? You been a naughty girl?’ All the other girls laughed.

  Denise curled her lips back from her broken teeth. ‘Oh, go fry your shite!’

  The girl made a face at her and called out, ‘She’s a silver-tongued bastard, ain’t she, girls?’

  Denise picked up her Sobranie cigarette from an ashtray and pulled on it, stifling an urge to put it out on the girl’s face.

  She’d murder that bloody Shirelle!

  Detective Inspector Murphy was driving home to his house in Putney. Since his run-in with Maura Ryan he had been doing some snooping and what he had found out had given him food for thought. She was as clean as a whistle, never even been cautioned, but she had an Achilles heel and he had found out what it was. Tomorrow morning a certain young DC was going to get a shock. He smiled to himself. He quite liked young Petherick as well! He began to whistle a little tune. He would teach Maura Ryan a lesson she shouldn’t forget. If there was one thing he hated, it was mouthy young women.

  Maura got out of bed and began to get dressed. Terry lay for a while watching her. She was the sexiest girl he had ever known. The secret of her allure was the fact that she was completely unaware of it. She sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed her stockings up her legs. He pulled her backwards and kissed her, fondling her breasts.

  ‘Is it my imagination or are your boobs getting bigger?’

  Maura pulled away from him. ‘Don’t be so rude!’ She pursed her lips. ‘Come on, Tel, get dressed. You’ve got to run me home.’

  He got off the bed and stretched himself lazily. ‘I wish you didn’t have to go.’ His voice was childlike.

  ‘Well, I have. And soon. So hurry up.’ She picked up a pillow and threw it at him. He caught it and threw it back, knowing it would cause a pillow fight. Five minutes later they lay semi-naked on the bed, both trying to catch their breath.

  ‘I love you, Terry.’ Maura’s voice was low.

  ‘And I love you, Maura. More than you think.’

  She smiled at him. She hoped that what he said was true, because tomorrow she was going to find out whether she was indeed pregnant. She bit her lip. There was going to be murder, she could feel it in her bones.

  Michael arranged to see Lee on his own. His brother stood in front of him, his face pale. As far as he knew he had done nothing wrong.

  ‘That right you give the old man a hammering today?’

  Lee swallowed noisily. ‘He was belting the old woman.’ Michael smiled one of his radiant smiles that seemed to light him up from inside. ‘You did good, Lee. Remember this . . . you always look after the womenfolk. You never, ever let anyone hurt them, no matter who they are. I’m proud of you, Lee.’

  Lee smiled with relief.

  ‘I’ll bung the old man a few bob tomorrow. He’ll be as sweet as a nut. Now get yourself off home.’

  Lee left the little office with his heart singing. He could hear the first few bars of ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and hurried down into the club. The girl who stripped to this particular record was a six foot amazon with olive skin, jet black hair, large brown eyes, and the biggest tits he had ever seen in his life! He settled down next to Benny, who being a thoughtful kind of boy had saved him a seat!

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Detective Constable Petherick, the big boss wants to see you.’

  The WPC who gave Terry the message was grinning all over her face. He looked across his desk at Detective Sergeant Jones and made a little face. Far from being amused DS Jones just stared at him sadly and shook his head.

  ‘You must have been barmy, lad if you thought you could get away with it.’

  Terry looked at him nonplussed. ‘What are you on about?’ His voice was genuinely bewildered.

  Jones picked up some papers from in front of him and pretended to sort through them. ‘Get yourself into the office, son. The Chief Inspector doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’

  Terry stood up. The WPC who had spoken to him was standing with one of her cronies and laughing. He had a sneaking feeling that the object of their amusement was himself. He racked his brains trying to think what he had done wrong. As far as he knew all the reports he had typed up were fine. He’d had two ‘collars’ in the last few weeks, and neither of them had been in any way abnormal. There was nothing that he could think of that would merit being seen by the Chief Inspector. He made his way across the crowded office to the glass partition that served as the Chief’s office when he was down ‘below’ with his men and tapped on the door.

  The Chief Inspector was deep in conversation with DI Dobin when he motioned with his hand for Terry to enter. He walked
into the office tentatively, shutting the door quietly behind him. The two men stopped talking as he entered and the Chief told him to sit down. Both the Chief and the DI regarded him stonily. Terry sat down opposite the Chief. He could feel sweat coming out of every pore in his body. He wiped the palms of his hands on the front of his trousers. As far as he knew he had not done anything wrong. He was trying frantically to think of any slip-up he could have made when the Chief Inspector spoke.

  ‘Well, Petherick. This is a nice kettle of fish, I must say.’ His voice was hard. Never had Terry been reprimanded before, not even when he had inadvertently written down a suspect’s numberplate wrongly and it had led the inquiry team to go to the house of a respected judge.

  He cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I’m not with you.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering the same thing myself, young man.’

  Terry watched his superior. He was not loved by his men but he was respected, which in Terry’s mind was a much better thing. Chief Inspector Harris was an ample man who ran his squad along the lines of an army platoon. Indeed, he had been a colonel in the Lancers. He still sported large handlebar moustaches that had earned him the nickname ‘Flying Officer Kite’. He was a large, extremely corpulent individual, much given to brightly coloured clothes that made him look like a confidence trickster. But for all that he was shrewd. Very shrewd indeed.

  ‘I am sorry, sir. I really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.’

  The Chief looked up at DI Dobin, a smirk on his chubby red face.

  ‘Hear that, Dobin? The cheeky young bugger’s begging me pardon.’

  Dobin nodded. Personally he thought that the Chief was an arsehole. He would not have given Murphy house-room, but the Chief was the Chief, and if he saw fit to listen to Murphy . . . Dobin mentally shrugged. What could he do? He felt sorry for the boy. He was getting caught up in one of Murphy’s little vendettas. Dobin had heard the chat in the canteen about how Maura Ryan had wiped the floor with him verbally. He had laughed, along with most of the others. Now it seemed Murphy had done a bit of digging and had uncovered poor Petherick’s association with the girl. He was to be Murphy’s sacrificial lamb.